The Duel
Recap Lily decides to take Robin over to her apartment (which she herself has not been to in three months) while they are out, but when they get to Lily's apartment, they find that the landlady has passed away, and Lily's apartment is now a Chinese restaurant called Madame Chew's House of Dumplings. Lily even sees many of her personal belongings still there. Lily and Robin immediately head over to Ted and Marshall's apartment to explain the situation, and Ted tells Lily that she is welcome to live with them now, "since you practically live here anyway." Barney warns Ted that things will change with Lily officially living at the apartment, and that eventually they'll force him out of the apartment. Ted doesn't believe him, but after he finds "Shocky" (his very old coffee pot that always gave him an electrical jolt) in the garbage and replaced by Lily's coffee pot, he begins to think Barney is right. He feels even more threatened when Marshall tells him he wants to hang Lily's painting where the two swords hang. In order to try to reclaim his territory, Ted begins to label all of his food and then orders a life-sized English phone booth for the apartment. He begins to argue with Marshall about who should get the apartment, which leads to a duel with the swords that hung on the wall. Both consider this duel awesome even though they are fighting for the apartment and mad at each other. Events become tragic when a coffee table collapses under Marshall's weight, and he stumbles backward and stabs Lily with the sword. After she is patched up at the hospital, Lily tells them that she doesn't want to live there once they are married because she feels that it is a manly environment. Meanwhile, Barney has created a revolutionary idea in the dating world: The Lemon Law. Similar in nature to lemon laws for used cars, Barney's new lemon law for dating gives a person five minutes to decide if the date will go on for the rest of the night or not. They can call the date off for any reason in the first five minutes, avoiding bad dates. Barney goes on to say that it will become "a thing" after "lemon-lawing" two different women on dates. Robin argues that it takes longer for people to get to know each other, so she challenges Barney by taking a nerdy guy obsessed with Star Trek on a date. Barney calls her to try to get her to use the lemon law, but she refuses. The guy asks if it was a fake call from the hospital, and she tells him that she would never do that. Only a few minutes later, she gets a real call from the hospital telling her that Marshall has accidentally stabbed Lily, and leaves, feeling a bit guilty. At the hospital Barney reveals that his lemon law is now "a thing," as he had just been "lemon-lawed" by a girl earlier that night. He also regrets not calling it Barney's Law so as to get some name recognition or fame. Once Lily is released from the hospital, they go eat Chinese dumplings at the restaurant in Lily's old apartment. Continuity *This is the first episode where Robin is assumed to be a prostitute. *Marshall accidentally wounds Lily for the second time; the first time occurred in the . Future References (Contains Spoilers) *Barney mentions he is on a date with a girl he met online. In the episode , he makes fun of Ted for meeting a girl by playing World of Warcraft. *Referring to her picture from Homecoming, Lily says, "Yeah, the bangs were a mistake." In the flashback to Lily's prom in , Lily does have rather unflattering bangs. *In , Marshall gives Ted one of the swords. *Lily wears the white shirt with the blue toile design that she wears in this episode's opening montage again in . *While arguing with Ted about who should get the apartment, Marshall says that he and Lily might need the second room soon after they get married because they aren't careful with their birth control, and in , Lily worries that she might be pregnant when her period is late. *Robin is assumed to be a prostitute again in and . *In , Future Ted mentions the sword-fight between him and Marshall as one of the few fights he's been in. *In , Marshall brings up how he is always accidentally injuring Lily, listing instances that occurred both in and this episode. *Ted correctly predicts that it will be at least three years until Marshall and Lily have a baby, as they do not until . *Barney is seen being unable to use the chopsticks at the end of the episode, but eventually learns some time before the events of , presumably while taking Shinjitsu Habachi cooking classes in Hoboken, as mentioned in that same episode. *The duel, and Lily getting injured in it, is referenced again in , where it is revealed Ted and Marshall had another one, during which they destroyed Lily's dress for Robin and Barney's wedding reheasal dinner, and Lily and Robin also had one, during which they destroyed Ted's bottle of 30-year Glen McKenna, on April 26th, 2013. Gallery The Duel.png|Ted and Marshall duel over who gets the apartment after Marshall's wedding. Lily's former apartment.png|Lily's former apartment, now a Chinese restaurant. English phone boot.png|The English phone booth arrived. Sci-fi restaurant.png|Robin tries to convince Barney it takes more than 5 minutes to see if there's a second date. Memorable Quotes Notes and Trivia Goofs and Errors Allusions and Outside References *Ted buys an for the apartment. The red phone booths were very common in the streets of the until more recently, which is why Marshall uses a British accent when teasing Ted about it. *Robin's date insults her using an expression in , a fictional language that belongs to the universe. *Lily calls Ted and Marshall "Knights of the Poorly Constructed Round Table", referring to the from the legends of " ". Music * - Other Notes * , who guest stars as Kevin, starred with Jason Segel on . He is the second Freaks and Geeks cast-member to guest star on How I Met Your Mother. Guests * - Kevin * - Chinese Waitress *Maya Parish - Erin *Jacqueline Pinol - Jackie *Keri Safran - Katie *Keisuke Hoashi - Doctor *Brian Petrucelli - Moving Man #1 Reception References External Links * * * uk:The Duel de:Das Duell es:El duelo it:Il Duello Category: Episodes Category:Season 1